Yeah Lean&Green can probably tell better than me how it cost because I never set a budget, I just pay the bills, the rent, and usually all the rest of the money goes for food, which is not a lot of money. I want to spend about 50$/week on food, so 200$/month, but I don't know if it's what I'm doing, I think it's more. A juice fast is very flexible. You won't drink as much as L&G. Also the amount of money you spend on this depends for how long you want it to last, if it's only 3 days or 1 week, you can even manage to do this without buying anything and use what you already have in the fridge. It depends also if you're doing smoothies or juices that are dilued into very large quantity of water. I only have a blender, no juice extractor, so I need to put lots of water to be able to liquify the foods. But the fact that it keeps all the fibers thicken the beverages and allows to chew sometimes I'm buying as much organic as I can, like for bananas, grains, seeds and most of the nuts, some greens. But when an organic food is like 2-4 times more expensive than the non-organic one, I'll buy the non-organic one or I'll simply pass on that food.

I would suggest to EVERYBODY to do things like integral fasting, or juice fasting, liquid diets, cleansing, mono-diet, etc, at least one time. And NOT JUST TRY and giving up after the first day or two, but to EXPERIENCE it. Because after you've done it for let's say at least 1 week, it can litteraly change your perception of foods and the way to eat. I'm glad I'm doing this because after this I'm pretty sure I'll continue making fruits and veggie juices to drink between meals or right before meals. I knew how much juices were an excellent way to have plenty of vitamins and enzymes, oxygen, water and chlorophyll, but I almost never done any juice before except the protein drinks. Now this good habit will stay with me for life. Or if it's not in juices, I'll eat more whole fruits than before and make huge green salads to eat before most of my meals.

I notice you have maca in your smoothie. What do you know about maca? I know it's available in liquid or powder form. I wonder about taking the actual root. A friend of mine in Peru takes it in his smoothie and wants to send some to me. He claims it gives him good energy.

AndreaFrancis I also heard maca gives good endurance, energy, strenght, antioxydants...? (I don't remember exactly). I wanted to buy some but it was way too much expensive! At the foodstore I went it was too expensive, if you get the chance to find some at low price or if you can afford at any price, why not. The maca in my smoothie was already in the hemp powder blend I bought and is probably just a tiny quantity of maca (just enough so they can write it contains some) otherwise the jar would cost more. I once bought a Ruth's raw hemp-maca-ginger energy bar, it was good There's some other natural plants that may provide similar benefits while being cheaper: caffeine (tea, coffee, cocoa, etc), guarana (another form of caffeine, that is released more slowly and gradually to the bloodstream than conventional caffeine), ginger, ginkgo biloba, hawtorne or yerbal tea (I don't know what to call it), those last two are espescially good for vasovascularity.

Lean & Green , ahah that is so funny ! "All I know is week 1 was basically spent in the bathroom. It would've made complete sense just to keep the blender in the bathroom and make juice blends there because had to pee every 1 1/2 minutes."You're right about the avocados being an excellent choice, I would have used some but don't have any yet, same goes for plenty of other foods good for juices such as cucumbers and celery. I will buy all those as soon as I can but lately haven't got the chance because of work. I have some kale, spinach, mint, parsley in my freezer but didn't feel like using them, maybe later. Lately I've been working out just like once per week and no cycling with all the rainy days. But once the sun comes out for good I'm gonna change my activity level and so my diet too. I think I might give up all the protein smoothies with fruits, and instead i'm gonna do like you: when I feel the need for fruits, energy, vitamins I'll go for fruit juices, and when I feel for proteins : just hemp powder or brewers' yeast into water. The soy protein isolate I still have is the only powder I'll continue on mixing with fruits because I would vomit if I drink that white powder just in water - it would make me believe I'm drinking milk and that would be truly ing!

There's some other natural plants that may provide similar benefits while being cheaper: caffeine (tea, coffee, cocoa, etc), guarana (another form of caffeine, that is released more slowly and gradually to the bloodstream than conventional caffeine), ginger, ginkgo biloba, hawtorne or yerbal tea (I don't know what to call it), those last two are espescially good for vasovascularity.

Good point, thanks for the excellent info. If my friend does end up sending me maca root I'll let you know how it goes, I just called a couple places and maca in liquid form is $35 I don't know for how much though.

More than a week now in my juice fast/feast or liquid diet, call it whatever you want. At first I felt tired due to insuffisant calories and frustrated about the restrictions, but now I love it and who know I might even continue for longer than a month. Before starting this I tought maybe I could lose 10 lbs in one month... When I started I was at 135lbs. Last time I checked I was at 125, so I lost 10lbs in 7 days. I'm surprised because I looked about the same. I was sure I wasn't losing any weight so I wasn't drinking too much juice. Now I use this first week as a reference: I know I need to drink more otherwise I'll lose weight too fast. It's truly the best way to lose weight, while cleaning the body, I think I'll do this every summer. It's fun to have for mission to try to consume as much as I can of all those fruits. As I said I felt tired the first days, but now I'm always full of energy and I need about only 5 hours of sleep, my body recover from about anything. After walking 3 hours and a half carrying over 15kg I felt good after 5 minutes of rest.

Today I bought for about 50$ of fruits and some veggies. I took some pics because it's the first time in my life that I buy so many fruits and that I drink so many of them too! I really wanted to eat them, but that's what I'll do in a few weeks.

So do you think you're initial lack of energy was because of a dramatic drop in calorie intake? I'm interested in a juice fast, but I'm also scared. I don't want to sacrifice the energy that I need to work a full time job and complete 2-hour workouts each day. I guess it's like any change in diet in that it takes a few days to adjust to. I'm cutting calories right now and I certainly feel it. It seems like I'm hungry all the time!

_________________"In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently."

Thank you Emmybear, indeed most of them are delicious. Some others are just bad results of experiments lol. During next days I'll try recipes in books and websites so they should be all good.

Sophierhymes, yes I think the first days of fatigue were just because of a drop in calorie intake. Because the days before starting the juice fast I was eating madly about 4 000 cals then I suddeny dropped under 1000 cals on the juice fast without transition so the body didn't have time to adjust at all. But for the next days, I noticed I always had a loss of energy at my work because I hate it. I was feeling so weak that I was barely able to walk, but before and after work I always felt 100% energetic and I had to run and jump everywhere to calm down.

Sometimes I feel hungry most of the day, sometimes not. I guess it depends if it's dense calorie smoothies or just very diluted fruit juices that are mostly just low-calorie water. But I think when there's lots of liquids, I feel always fine, not full, not hungry; my body seems light and my mind is clear. When I feel fatigue I can always adjust the juices accordingly. Or can just rest, because it's normal to feel tired once in a while, after many physical efforts.

Now some questions.1. What is your current caloric intake, and what is the fat/carb/protein ratio?2. Do you think you have lost quite a bit of muscle as well as fat?3. From what you have learned, how many calories do you lose from a fruit by juicing? (eg. orange = 80cal, juice of orange = ?)4. How much training are you doing, and what kind?

_________________Learning how to be compassionate, gain wisdom, and love life.

So do you think you're initial lack of energy was because of a dramatic drop in calorie intake? I'm interested in a juice fast, but I'm also scared. I don't want to sacrifice the energy that I need to work a full time job and complete 2-hour workouts each day. I guess it's like any change in diet in that it takes a few days to adjust to. I'm cutting calories right now and I certainly feel it. It seems like I'm hungry all the time!

Sophie, just make sure you take in enough, no need to be scared. I get intense workouts and then work 17hr shifts right afterwards and i'm flying high. Just bring a cooler, ya know? I'm Your Man did not take in nearly enough calories but he's adjusting that now....

Guillame, ditch those pasteurized store bought juices man. The v8 has to be, at least. All those beautiful fruits, juice those, blend those and you'll be good to go. Fresh is best. It may be a minor inconvenience to lug a cooler around when you can't be home but it's wellllllll worth it. Trust me.

True, thicker blends/smoothies, satiate me longer. I still cannot get over how I go to sleep with a slight bit of hunger or I should say I hold back from drinking more yet when I wake up, I feel so full, full to the point where I feel like not eating for 14 hours. I force myself to eat every morning b/c I know I should and then after that, my appetite opens up nicely.

I totally hear you about the sense of smell being heightened. I can smell the quinoa grains in a close cabinet from 6 feet away. They smell lovely

Guillame, ditch those pasteurized store bought juices man. The v8 has to be, at least. All those beautiful fruits, juice those, blend those and you'll be good to go. Fresh is best. It may be a minor inconvenience to lug a cooler around when you can't be home but it's wellllllll worth it. Trust me.

I know, you're right. The first week I didn't buy any. The second week I drinked 3, I didn't bring enough of mine to work. But it still was less than 5% of what I drinked that week, there was 2 small 300ml bottles and one 900ml. The Arthur Smoothies say on the bottle "flash pasteurized", there's still some vitamins in it, but it will never be as good as a fresh juice that's for sure. I'll try to always have something homemade to drink with me next times

Now some questions.1. What is your current caloric intake, and what is the fat/carb/protein ratio?2. Do you think you have lost quite a bit of muscle as well as fat?3. From what you have learned, how many calories do you lose from a fruit by juicing? (eg. orange = 80cal, juice of orange = ?)4. How much training are you doing, and what kind?

Thank you for your interest in my liquid journey!

1. I don't have any idea I never count calories, eventhough I know approximate number of calories for about each food. But I was just drinking whenever I felt hunger and never thought about the amount of calories. But judging by the weight I lost in 7 days... I lost 10lbs in 7 days. To lose 1 pound of fat you need to burn 3500 calories. Therefore I had a 35000 calories deficit last week. To maintain my weight I need between 2000-2500 cals/day, so about 15000 cals/week to avoid losing or gaining fat. All this doesn't make any sense so I dont know lol

2.Perhaps. If yes, I don't notice it. I heard it's almost impossible to lose only fat. The body sometimes turns to muscles. There's two ways to prevent losing muscles while cutting and both are necessary : Use your muscles, all your lean mass, otherwise the body see this mass as useless extra weight. And have enough proteins, especially on low-calorie diet.I didn't follow those two things very well so I supposed I lost some muscles.

3.I don't lose anything from the fruits I use for juices. Because I don't have a juicer, only a blender. So everything I put in the blender is what I get into my body. It keeps all the calories, vitamins, fibres (which kinda make smoothies more than juices), etc...

4.I don't really train these days. I do some physical activities but it's more of an anti-training, lol. I almost never begin a 30 minutes or 1 hour workout well defined session, or only once a week. Usually I just stay active during all day by walking, running a bit, now that there's less rain I'll probably do cycling. Concerning weightlifting I don't go to the gym, I only do some push-ups, pull-ups and other bodyweight exercises whenever I feel like it. I might begin some kung fu classes this summer, I'll see. But concerning weightlose, physical activities help losing more weight, but it's not necessary. We can lose weight even by only sleeping and sit on a chair, if the calories are low enough.

I think it's about time I refresh this blog!So I'm now at my 3rd week of liquid feast. Only 1 week left! I can't wait to bite into something. It's gonna be fruits, after 1 month of drinking, it's gonna be very good. Then veggies and salads (mmm, avocado, corn... ) and more fruits because I want to stay raw until August. Then it's gonna be junk food! Mmmm, junk food. Lol

As you will notice, I had lots of drinks made with a base of processed beverages such as carob soy milk, almond-vanilla milk, etc... Some commercial energy drinks. That's not part of a cleansing... I guess I had a few days where I craved for solid foods or junk foods, and I ended up drinking those things. It's silly because I have all the ingredients to make natural home-made energy drinks.Anyway, this cleansing became a juice fast, then a juice feast, then blends, then just a liquid diet with raw soup and smoothies, it's still doing what I started it for, main reason was simply to lose fat and it's still working. And burning fat always kind of mean cleansing. I guess I'm not as strong as Lean & Green, who stayed with very healthy ingredients for his juices. But it's normal, he's a raw foodist since 2 years, and I still enjoy veggiedogs and tofuburgers There's only 7 or 8 days left, so I'll try to finish in beauty with more clean juices.

Almost all my drinks are not good food combinations (digestively speaking). For the last week, I shall try to drink fruits alone juices, and when I feel I need proteins I'll drink hemp protein powder or brewer's yeast in water. For greens: some cream or soup like I had before.

Thanx for the visit Mangosuma !Those where I wrote "delicious" are delicious!Next week when I'll eat solid foods I want to try that fruit salad that yo like, even if it's bad for digestion, it must taste good: mango-avocado-banana.

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